Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Where Has All the Software Gone?





There was a time in the not too distant past, that when you entered a computer or office store, you would be faced with many shelves and choices of software for your personal computer.

Have you checked these same stores lately?

Only a handful of choices remain, and they are mostly bookkeeping or virus protection programs.

No more going to the store to purchase a program on a CD with the printed documentation that can be installed on your computer.

Now you must buy it online - mostly in a downloadable format.

No hard copy on CD and no documentation or books to figure out how to use it.

If your hard drive bites the dust or you buy a new computer - no problem, just go online and pay for it again to download it.

NOT!

Some of that software is expensive so downloading it again is not always an option.

I try to keep a file on my computer with the original download in it so if I need it again it is there.

But that doesn't always work as sometimes the software needs some kind of installer through the merchant that just isn't available when you need to reinstall it again - it's a one shot deal.

I must say - I miss the days of having my CD's handy when I need to "fix" some corrupted program or simply reinstall it.

But I guess things just have to keep changing - even if they are not for the better.












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